He established himself lazily and comfortably as he spoke, as Julian with much apparent satisfaction flung himself into another chair, and took out his cigar-case.
Julian’s questions followed one another thick and fast. His interest in his friend’s life during the last six months seemed to be inexhaustible in its intelligence and sympathy. He had a great deal to tell, too; and he told it so fluently and gaily as almost to disguise the fact that the allusions to his own doings were of the most superficial type. But at last there was a pause. Julian was pulling out his watch, and saying something about going home, when Loring lighted a fresh cigar and opened the proceedings—as he conceived them.
“I heard of you in the City this morning!” he said nonchalantly.
There was no pause in the movement with which Julian returned his watch to his pocket; nothing, absolutely, to betray the fact that the words were a surprise to him. Yet they were a surprise, and an exceedingly unpleasant one. His transactions in the City he had arranged to keep secret; that their nature should become known was eminently undesirable, and he had decided that the fact itself would be inconsistent with his pose before the world. That Loring should be the man to unearth them was exceptionally unfortunate.
“Did you?” he said lightly; “and who was saying what of me in the City—a vague locality, by-the-bye.”
“The introduction of your name was accidental—accidents will happen, you know, even in Adams’s office. Is that a definite locality enough to please you?”
Julian burst into a boyish laugh and flung himself back in his chair; he carried his cigar to his lips as he did so, not noticing apparently that it had gone out. Loring noticed it, however.
“What a fellow you are, Loring!” he cried. “You’ve not been in England three days before you unearth a poor chap’s most private little games! I say, you’ll keep it dark, won’t you? I wouldn’t have it come round to my mother, you know! She’s so awfully generous to me, and it might hurt her feelings.”
There was an ingenuous frankness and confidence in his voice which gave to the whole affair the aspect of a youthful escapade. Loring smiled as he answered:
“I wouldn’t have a hand in hurting Mrs. Romayne’s feelings for the world.” He paused a moment, and then added carelessly, as if the whole transaction was the merest matter of course: “Been doing much?”